


La Fanfare Parisien du Quartier Latin

by oilpainter



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brass band AU, Courfeyrac Is A Little Shit, Drama, EVERYONE IS ALIVE AND HAPPY, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, F/M, Friendship, Grantaire is a Mess, I wrote this years ago, Jehan is oblivious, Les Amis de l'ABC Shenanigans, M/M, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Romance, Valjean as the conductor, everyone is a disaster
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22620343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oilpainter/pseuds/oilpainter
Summary: The modern AU which no one asked for of Les Amis de l'ABC in a brass band.Or, Enjolras is the solo cornet player and wants to be in charge, Grantaire is a very talented tenor horn player who never practices and Bossuet is the percussionist (which is a bad idea). And Jehan and Courf are completely oblivious.
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Courfeyrac/Jean Prouvaire, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Les Amis de l'ABC Friendship
Kudos: 10





	La Fanfare Parisien du Quartier Latin

Wednesday nights were always the most chaotic nights at St Rémy's Community Hall, Paris. The reason for this, of course, being that rabble of assorted students in La Fanfare Parisien du Quartier Latin (which Courfeyrac had affectionately nicknamed Les Amis, as it was easier to say and he couldn't think of anything better at such short notice). 8pm until 10pm every Wednesday consisted of Les Amis' 17 to 26 year olds blasting a variety of brass instruments, usually out of tune but occasionally quite musically. Jean Prouvaire was one of these young people.

The walk to the rehearsal hall was peaceful – Jehan had swung his horn case cheerfully as he walked through the gardens on his route – a slight detour, but nevermind that now. A butterfly had flown by and he had to stop and squint at it to see what patterns it had on its wings, and to wonder at the fact that he just saw a butterfly in October. Then he may have dropped his music stand on his foot in a Bossuet-like manner, cursed "oh fiddlesticks" and had to hobble the rest of the way, delaying his walk. As a consequence he was 30 minutes late, later than Marius Pontmercy, the 2nd tenor horn player who was only slightly organised because Cosette Fauchelevant was in his life (he was worse before they met).

After grumbling under his breath about his foot and finally reaching the door, Cosette was the first person Jehan saw upon entering the building. She looked very frazzled and anxious and was holding her soprano cornet protectively, as if the chaos in the room might dent it. "My dad isn't here yet," she explained to a curious Jehan. "Enjolras tried to conduct instead but you can see how well that worked out." 

And indeed, the band's solo cornet player, Enjolras, was failing at maintaining order. It seemed that he had started to conduct _Montagues and Capulets_ (judging by the sheet music that was on people's music stands, in the form of a paper plane under Bahorel's chair and on top of a confused Joly's head) but Grantaire had started an argument, probably about Enjolras's terrible conducting or overly-optimistic political views. They were now shouting at the top of their voices while euphonium player Combeferre tried to calm them down.

Jehan caught some of the argument: "waste of talent, you should be in a professional band…" "why all the over-exaggerated arm movements?" and "alcohol doesn't help you play the tenor horn".

Meanwhile, Courfeyrac was slouched in his chair playing _The Bare Necessities_ at fortissimo on his bass trombone, Bahorel seemed to be purposely tuning his Bb bass so that everything was a semitone higher, and Éponine was yelling at her brother over the phone about pickpocketing.

Jehan calmly reconstructed his stand and took a seat between Musichetta, the rep cornet player, and Grantaire's seat, where his tenor horn rested. "How are you coping?" he asked.

Musichetta looked a little traumatised. "Joly came home after performing a surgery and seeing tons of blood, and panicked when Bossuet broke a glass and cut himself the tiniest bit. Then he spent an hour cleaning his baritone and made us late. Now R and Enjolras have been arguing for a good ten minutes, we've got nothing done so far and I've got a headache. But apart from all that chaos I'm great. How are you?"

Jehan started to oil his flugelhorn's valves. "I had a French exam at lycée, which went well, wrote a poem on a napkin in a café and walked through the gardens on my way here."

Musichetta smiled. "That's great, kid."

When Jehan had joined La FPQL at age 14 he had quickly earned the nickname "the kid" as he was the youngest in the band – even younger than Cosette, who was one year his senior. Though it sometimes felt patronising, he was technically still 17 and therefore not an adult. And it wasn't so bad when a motherly figure like Musichetta called him this as she was one of the oldest in the band at 26 years old, and therefore had the right to think of him as a kid. Courfeyrac had once even joked that Jehan was his son, since he was apparently "the cutest ball of fluffy innocent happiness to ever have existed and I just want to adopt him, protect him and squeeze his cheeks". Jehan hadn't been sure how to react to that and decided to take it as a compliment.

Speaking of Courfeyrac, the trombonist finished his terrible rendition of _The Bare Necessities_ , slumped into Grantaire's chair (thankfully moving the tenor horn first) and pulled Jehan out of his thoughts. "How's my favourite poet doing?"

Jehan smiled brightly. "Alright I guess – I dropped my music stand on my foot but it was okay because I saw-"

At that moment Bahorel played a very loud and low-pitched G on his tuba (which was more like a G# because of how he had tuned it), startling a nearby Bossuet and making him drop a cymbal. Éponine then jumped and swore very colourfully as it crashed to the ground, leading to a now very enraged Enjolras sending a glare her way and Gavroche repeating her words on loudspeaker, and adding more. Marius looked scandalised at the 10-year-old's extensive vocabulary and tripped over Joly's chair, knocking over Feuilly's music stand. Feuilly then rolled his eyes and pulled Marius and the music stand up. Cosette headed over to the tenor horn section to fuss over Marius and make sure he wasn't badly hurt. Marius was grinning sheepishly. 

Jehan blinked, bewildered.

Courfeyrac grinned. "How is it that Bahorel can cause that much chaos in the space of five seconds? I want to be able to do that. Hey, maybe I should–"

"Please don't," Musichetta interrupted, looking positively alarmed. "I already have a bad enough headache."

"Just a tiny bit of _The Imperial March_ at fortissimo…?"

"Sorry Courf," said Jehan. "But we don't really want to be deaf."

Courfeyrac sighed, picked up Grantaire's tenor horn and quietly played four bars of _Toccata and Fugue in D minor_. It sounded like a mess of slurred notes because he was sight reading and playing an instrument he wasn't familiar with. His fingers were randomly pressing the keys in the wrong order, but at least he had the rhythms almost right. "Is that ok?" he inquired innocently.

Musichetta snorted. "It sounded like a dying walrus. Or maybe a dying elephant."

"That's what I was aiming for," Courf replied cheekily, clearly knowing it sounded awful. He put the horn down and turned to Jehan. "You have toothpaste just there by the way." Courfeyrac automatically licked his thumb and wiped away the toothpaste on Jehan's cheek. Jehan turned red, while over in the one-man baritone section Joly looked outraged that Courfeyrac had shared Grantaire's mouthpiece and then used his own spit to clean away Jehan's toothpaste. Then the trombonist stood up, placing Grantaire's horn back on the chair, and kissed Jehan on the other cheek. "You're my favourite flugelhornist," he spontaneously declared, and promptly left to play a trombone duet with Feuillly.

"I'm - the only flugelhornist he knows-" Jehan muttered in bewilderment after he left.

Musichetta watched the exchange, looking amused. Jehan put his head in his hands and groaned, blushing furiously. "He likes you." Musichetta stated the obvious.

"You know he was just teasing me."

"He was flirting with you!"

"If that was flirting then it was a very strange way to go about it," Jehan muttered, now almost the same red colour as his hair.

"But he kissed you, Prouvaire!" Musichetta objected.

"Courf flirts with everyone. He kisses everyone," Jehan deadpanned. "He'd kiss Enjolras if he didn't have to fear murder."

"You like him though, I've read some of you poetry and it's clear that it's about him – although I also have dark curly hair that shines in the moonlight…"

Jehan groaned. "Don't flatter yourself Chetta, you're almost ten years older than me. Anyway Courf is six years older than me so it'll never work - wait a minute." He glanced at her suspiciously, "When did you get your hands on my poetry?"

Luckily for Musichetta (as Jehan was fiercely protective of his poems after Marius had recited one to Cosette and claimed it to be his), Jean Valjean, the conductor, entered at a convenient moment. He looked around at the chaos – Enjolras was now making a speech about sexism in the workplace, Éponine was yelling at Gavroche over the phone about swearing, and Courfeyrac and Feuilly were playing painful tritone chords – blinked twice and cleared his throat.

Everyone stopped talking or playing and Marius rushed to get his sheet music out of his folder, terrified of his girlfriend's father.

"Let's start with the _Pirates of the Caribbean Medley_ , shall we?" Valjean decided, tapping his conducting baton on his music stand. 

Enjolras now looked calm as ever, retaking his seat next to Cosette in the cornet section. 

Everyone got their instruments ready, blowing warm air into them or emptying the spit valves. Jehan drank some water, his mouth dry after Musichetta's interrogation about his 'crush' on Courfeyrac.  
Valjean counted one bar before conducting them in, with Grantaire, Joly, Combeferre and Bahorel starting. The band played for a minute or two before he stopped them, asking, "Bahorel, what is that awful noise your instrument is making? It sounds like a foghorn." 

Feuilly snickered and Bahorel looked sheepish. He must have forgotten to return his tuning slide to where it was because he was ear-gratingly out of tune. What was surprising was that it took Valjean so long to notice. 

"Sounds like a dying walrus," Jehan contributed, smiling cheekily.

Enjolras looked amused. "Sounds like Courfeyrac groaning when you try to wake him up."

Courfeyrac gave an irked "Hey!" from the other side of the room and several of the Amis chuckled.

Valjean shook his head and sighed, looking done with all their shenanigans and regretting ever signing up for this. 

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on fanfiction.net 4 years ago (under the same username) and it was discontinued. I might write another chapter sometime once I have an idea of where the plot is going!  
> ExR is more of a side pairing and the main focus of the story is on Jehan/Courf. Jehan is 17 and Courfeyrac is 23. I didn't tag it as underage because the legal age of consent is 15 in France. They won't get in a relationship until much later in the story, and there most likely won't be any smut - just a lot of awkward, oblivious romance.   
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


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